Learning Activity – Having fun with brand identity.

Do you think the movie provides insight or detail into what drives product placement in entertainment?

Absolutely, I have seen the movie twice now and after both instances i have started noticing alot more of the product placements in movies and series i watch.
In two of the series i watch every now and then, to mention a few cases, House M.D is sponsored by apple computers and NCIS is sponsored by Nikon.They use Nikon cameras when photographing crime scenes for instance.

What have you observed about presentations of visual strategies/brand identity?.
The most effective product placement seems to be on an almost subliminal level, its kind of snuck into the show or movie without necessarily drawing too much attention to it.Yet it is very noticeable.

The other kind of product placement which is blatant and more or less turns the scene of the show or movie into a straight up commercial seems to be disliked and less effective, however this is how i feel about it. It didn’t work as well on me as a person.I almost felt insulted that they even bother. In all the cases of blatant product advertisements done in this way that i have experienced my self i believe i have in fact quit watching the show.
So this way of using product placement can be detrimental to tv shows or especially series.

Let’s consider this movie as a form of research. In other words, it was done to see what the effect of branded entertainment would be, a case study of sorts. What are your findings? What have you learnt? What has changed your pre-conceived ideas? Do you think there’s relevance in this case study? How could you apply your observations in real life?

Product placement is nothing new and we get used to it, almost blind to it in some cases, what i found most relevant and interesting in watching this documentary was that it brought the focus on product placement in it self. Especially interesting to me was how long or rather short time it took to find the tipping point to when the sponsors more or less took control of the whole production and wanted to change the artists view or alter the way their respective products were portrayed. Or in some cases didn’t want to be a part of the documentary at all (Even though they were already mentioned).

From the findings above (question 3) imagine that the international coffee brand, Starbucks, is your client. Give one complete strategy for a small activation campaign to advertise Starbucks on aeroplanes. Give one idea of how you would do this, by following the 5 steps of the work process. To guide you, follow the points below and do a write-up of your idea as well as the steps you followed:

Conduct research :

Starbucks allows purchasing coffe through their app. This means they can sell coffe to people on the airport or maybe even on the plane itself if the app accommodates this.
The main demographic for this would be the “red eye” flight as its called.If you catch the red eye and want some coffe its all set up and ready for you to buy in an instant as long as starbucks are allowed an outlet from where patrons can pick up their coffe.

Clarify the strategy :

A link to the application can be printed on the boarding pass with a short description and a QR code linking to the app itself as well as further information, this along with a special red eye discount.If the app is already installed it will link right to the offer inside the app.
After some more research i found that starbucks offers a coffe called the red eye with an espresso shot. This may be used in this campaign as it is already a thing.

Design the identity :

For the identity i sketched up an eye in red with the star bucks logo inside to illustrate the point of it being campaigned along with the red eye flights.

Create touchpoints :

The main touch point for this has been through the application so far so i think it is a good idea to keep having the communication through the app. After having picked up the in app bought coffe, some way of introducing a short survey of the experience would seem natural. Maybe as an extra nudge a link or some kind of reminder on the coffe cup could be printed bringing the customer to a survey or remind them that it exists.

Manage the assets :

As this is not a prolonged campaign, briefly describe how you would use the possible outcome of your campaign for future use.

Well, the information gathered through the survey is useful and can for instance determine whether patrons on the red eye flight want to drink coffe or to sleep on the flight. It would also show the hours where coffe purchases are at its highest in an airport with patrons from all over the place and from different time zones.